World's Worst Warships?

Andy_Ross said:
Vasa gets a bit of a bye as it was built at a time when they were still making it up as they went along to a certain extent.
Similarly with the Mary Rose, she already had given good service when she was taken in hand for a rebuild to incorporate new design features.
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HMS Captain then. Built in the 19th century, by which time they should have known better. Capsized after five months.
 
I was at the Vasa museum not too long ago, and the ballast issue was mentioned there as part of the issue.

Slight drift here - if you ever have a chance, it's worth a visit. Amazing.
 
Trebuchet said:
I'm pretty sure the (utterly useless) USN Zumwalt Class, and two classes of Littoral Combat Ship were designed by " professionals". To specifications decided upon by committee.
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I saw someone describe the Zumwalt class as the first vessels that to save money were designed "with but not for". its guns, which I thought was remarkable snark. And what's with their choice of radar system?

As you say it doesn't matter if you are designing to meet silly requirement specifications.
 
Trebuchet said:
I'm pretty sure the (utterly useless) USN Zumwalt Class, and two classes of Littoral Combat Ship were designed by " professionals". To specifications decided upon by committee.
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They didn't sink though
 
bruto said:
I was at the Vasa museum not too long ago, and the ballast issue was mentioned there as part of the issue.

Slight drift here - if you ever have a chance, it's worth a visit. Amazing.
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I certainly plan to.

Hans
 
More of a side note: The USS Princeton was a finely built ship with an excellent gun. Both designed by John Ericsson of later USS Monitor fame.

But the captain, Robert Stockton wanted another gun, and to show up that Ericsson guy, so he had a second cannon built - badly.

During a show off voyage with some very import people on board, Stockton did a demonstration firing of *his* gun and it exploded, killing six people, including the Secretary of State and the secretary of the Navy, President Tyler was on board survived because he was below decks at the time.

Stockton managed to avoid blame but the ship was considered a bad seed in the Navy afterwards and its lifespan was just 7 years.

Fun fact: Captain Stockton is a cousin several times removed from Stockton Rush, of Oceangate infamy.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Princeton_(1843)
 
Trebuchet said:
I drove past the Naval Shipyard at Bremerton, WA, a few days ago and noticed two LCS laid up there.
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I believe those are the ones whose propulsion systems will need to be totally ripped out for them to be anything near effective ships. And its just not worth it.



I'm not sure US taxpayers have ever been fleeced as badly as we were for those goofy things. The navy didn't even build a prototype of their new experimental propulsion system. They just started sticking it into ships!
 
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jeremyp said:
HMS Captain then. Built in the 19th century, by which time they should have known better. Capsized after five months.
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The sad thing is that they actually DID know better. Both the Admiralty and the shipyard actually voiced concerns about the design, including about its centre of gravity (and thus the minimal list that would send it past the point of no return) and the other flaws. The designer "solved" those by public campaigning and lobbying to get the objections overruled.
 
HansMustermann said:
The sad thing is that they actually DID know better. Both the Admiralty and the shipyard actually voiced concerns about the design, including about its centre of gravity (and thus the minimal list that would send it past the point of no return) and the other flaws. The designer "solved" those by public campaigning and lobbying to get the objections overruled.
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At least he went down with his ship

Drachinifel has a five minute guide to the Captain.

 
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Well, he did earn a Darwin award fair and square. The other 500 sailors that went down with that ship, well, probably didn't deserve it.
 
The lCS is a filed class. Should have just built a more convernional frigate/destroyer design.
 
dudalb said:
The lCS is a filed class. Should have just built a more convernional frigate/destroyer design.
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Was this a typo of
LCS is a failed class?

I think there is potential mileage in the concept of a mass of cheaper vessels optimised for shallow water fighting where the compromises for oceanic travel are avoided. But the two options chosen were not that
 
jimbob said:
Was this a typo of
LCS is a failed class?

I think there is potential mileage in the concept of a mass of cheaper vessels optimised for shallow water fighting where the compromises for oceanic travel are avoided. But the two options chosen were not that
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Yeah a $100 million small ship that can get into the "littoral" is not a bad idea per se. Things like... we're gonna have optional modules for sophisticated ASW for ships that can operate in only 10 feet of water?! Oh and this is for the USN that has nearly 100 destroyers/cruisers with ASW capabilities :boggled: Stupid unnecessary idea, that it never worked is just an add-on.
 
I'd say it's not a stupid idea PER SE. In fact we had that kind of thing all along. (See, coastal defence monitors and other such stuff.) Just the implementation was going into dada land and ploughing right through.
 
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